anirprof: it's not incorrect but it doesn't say what you are claiming.

that co2 concentrations were 5x higher in the past isn't the same as saying that all the carbon currently contained in hydrocarbons in the crust were in the air then.

mcmegan: given that the 100 year projections involve carbon concentrations below 1,000 ppm, the statement that "all the stuff we're burning was in the atmosphere" is correct. was every hydrocarbon in the ground in the atmosphere? probably not. but every hydrocarbon in the ground is not recoverable, so that's not a very interesting question.

tinisoli: why don't you just clarify what you meant and then we'll see if it actually meant what you're nor pretending it did?

mcmegan: i wasn't unclear. you and anirprof decided that i must have meant something else, and proceeded to argue furiously against something i didn't say.

the estimated reserve life of the major oil reserves clocks in at under 150 years. by then, we'll have figured out something else, or the economy will collapse anyway, and we won't need to worry about greenhouse gasses.

anirprof: plus about four other commenters above and below this point who read it the same way, so i wouldn't be so quick to assert there was nothing wrong with the phrasing. given what you say you were trying to communicate, takuansoho's comment below suggests a phrasing that makes a lot more sense than the original.

mcmegan: in my experience, there are a number of issues where people stop reading about halfway through, and start arguing with the opponent in their head. this is one of them.

brian despain: that's one of the best quotes you have ever had megan. this thread is great evidence for that. [teacher's pet.]

downpuppy: and like all megan quotes, makes more sense when you realize it's about megan. nobody is claiming that global warming is a threat to all life on earth, so megan writes a post to say that everybody who claims that global warming will end life on earth is a doodyhead.

by writing it really badly & throwing in some rubbish about co2, she gets 3 more posts to respond to people who haven't noticed that she really hasn't said anything worth reading.

double win!

norman rogers: does the opponent in your head make you set fires and laugh at inappropriate moments?

syz: shorter megan: after my arguments have been thoroughly debunked, i like to switch to ad hominem attacks. also too, zosima is a snot-nosed know-nothing brat and i really should get around to banning him cause he keeps embarrassing me with his mastery of 9th grade math.

phyllis schlafly - ragin' whackadoodle bee-atch

listen you dried up old hag. i'm not married. i'm not on welfare. i've been providing for myself since i was 18....now...stfu.

"unmarried women, 70% of unmarried women, voted for obama, and this is because when you kick your husband out, you've got to have big brother government to be your provider," said schlafly, president of eagle forum and infamous for her opposition to the equal rights amendment. - tpm

que sherrod, sherrod, whoever will sue, will sue

sherrod made the announcement thursday in san diego at the national association of black journalists annual convention.

breitbart posted a heavily edited video of sherrod on his website, biggovernment.com, speaking to an naacp group and appearing to admit that she had deliberately refrained from giving full assistance to a farmer because he was white.

the political fallout from the posting prompted the agriculture department to force sherrod to resign.

a full version of the speech, released later, shows that she was referring to an incident that occurred more than two decades earlier and lessons she learned after initially hesitating to help a white farmer save his home.

breitbart did not immediately respond to a request for comment. he has not apologized for posting the misleading video, arguing that the incident was “not about shirley sherrod” and was instead about the naacp’s accusation that the tea party has employed “racist tactics.”

"andrew breitbart is going to be fine. he's done nothing wrong,” said brent bozell, president of the conservative media research center. “i wonder if ms. sherrod, who is such a champion of transparency, will publicly disclose who is putting her up to this. and i also hope this champion of honesty will stop lying about fox news. i'm also waiting for ms. sherrod to publicly apologize for accusing anyone opposed to nationalized health care of being racist. last time i checked, that was more than half the country."

breaking! arizona immigration law broken!

a federal judge on wednesday blocked the most controversial parts of arizona's immigration law from taking effect, delivering a last-minute victory to opponents of the crackdown.

the overall law will still take effect thursday, but without the provisions that angered opponents — including sections that required officers to check a person's immigration status while enforcing other laws.

the judge also put on hold parts of the law that required immigrants to carry their papers at all times, and made it illegal for undocumented workers to solicit employment in public places.

u.s. district judge susan bolton ruled that the controversial sections should be put on hold until the courts resolve the issues.

the ruling came just as police were making last-minute preparations to begin enforcement of the law at 12:01 a.m. thursday and protesters were planning a large demonstrations to speak out against the measure. at least one group planned to block access to federal offices, daring officers to ask them their immigration status.

among the provisions u.s. district judge susan bolton put on hold are the "reasonable suspicion" section that would allow police to arrest and detain suspected illegal immigrants without a warrant. she also temporarily blocked the part of the law requiring the carrying of federal immigration documents.

a provision making it illegal for undocumented immigrant day laborers to solicit or perform work was also temporarily blocked. the enjoined provisions will remain in limbo while the court weighs legal questions surrounding them.

tea baggers - not good for what ails the gop

via greg sargent, a memo from "top democrats" on the hill explains how the tea baggers are more of a liability than a help to the gop:

the tea party has presented three problems for republicans. the most glaring problem is where the tea party candidate has defeated the moderate (and more electable) republican candidate. second, republican candidates are being forced to take unpopular extreme positions to satisfy the ideological base to avoid defeat in their primaries. third, we are seeing numerous tea party candidates run as third party candidates which is splitting the republican vote...

there are more than 100 conservative third party candidates on the ballot. this is important because it lowers the win number for the democratic candidate.

lots of folks have argued that talk about the gop winning back the house could be helpful to dems by dramatizing the stakes of the midterms. but this memo suggests that dem leaders recognize that such talk needs to be neutralized quickly, lest it damage morale and dampen fundraising. at any rate, this is how dem strategists view the evolving map right now.

Bad Timing Coincidence of the Day

Whatever else one might think about the "walled garden" approach to content and applications at Apple, at least it finally gives the lie to that assertion (beloved of excruciatingly dull cultural theorists and technofuturists wanting to put a bit of ersatz spice in their prognostications) that "porn is the driver of technological innovation".

Blonde and Wet, the Complete Story was ranked first on the iPad in a top 10 that included three other erotic novellas yesterday morning....

Experts said the market for pornographic fiction had been given a boost by the rise of the iPad and other e-readers.

Philip Stone, charts editor for The Bookseller magazine, told The Times: "The embarrassment factor of being caught reading something like that in print is not there. If it’s on your iPad then no one can tell what you’re reading. You could be reading Plato."

In fairness, I have to note that most of the iBook readers I see on the subway are reading Romance Novels.

the bp oil spill saga has suddenly turned into a weird james bond thriller. according to media reports, bp ceo tony hayward has been exiled to siberia, where he will oversee tnk-bp, a joint venture between bp and a group of russian oil billionaires, one of whom boasts a name that even the most jaded hack screenwriter would likely think too lame to bestow on an evil master-villain: german khan.

even odder: hayward is being replaced as ceo by american-born robert dudley, a former amoco executive who reportedly had to flee russia in 2008 after a campaign of "sustained harrassment" made it impossible for him to effectively run tnk-bp.

Monday, July 26, 2010

rational people agree w/skippy: breitbart is an asshole!

to make this point one more time, it's true that "both sides," to one degree or another, let their ideological and political preferences dictate some editorial decisions, such as what stories to pursue, how to approach them, who to interview, etc. but what's underappreciated is the degree to which the breitbart-fox axis goes far beyond this, openly employing techniques of political opposition researchers and operatives to drive the media narrative.

this simply has no equivalent on the left. the leading lefty media organizations have teams of reporters who -- even if they are to some degree ideologically motivated -- work to determine whether their material is accurate, fair, and generally based in reality before sharing it with readers and viewers. they just don't push info -- with no regard to whether it's true or not -- for the sole purpose of having maximum political impact. period.

this is an important difference that's critical to understanding the rapidly shifting landscape in the new-media age. if i ran the universe more media figures would come right out and say what the times hinted at today: no, both sides don't do it.

the mainstream media and the obama administration must stop cowering before a right wing that has persistently forced its propaganda to be accepted as news by convincing traditional journalists that "fairness" requires treating extremist rants as "one side of the story." and there can be no more shilly-shallying about the fact that racial backlash politics is becoming an important component of the campaign against president obama and against progressives in this year's election.

the administration's response to the doctored video pushed by right-wing hit man andrew breitbart was shameful. the obsession with "protecting" the president turned out to be the least protective approach of all.

the obama team did not question, let alone challenge, the video. instead, it assumed that whatever narrative fox news might create mattered more than anything else, including the possible innocence of a human being outside the president's inner circle.

obama complained on abc's "good morning america" that agriculture secretary tom vilsack "jumped the gun, partly because we now live in this media culture where something goes up on youtube or a blog and everybody scrambles." but it's his own apparatus that turned "this media culture" into a false god.

yet the obama team was reacting to a reality: the bludgeoning of mainstream journalism into looking timorously over its right shoulder and believing that "balance" demands taking seriously whatever sludge the far right is pumping into the political waters.

the “warfare” is happening partly in the conservative media, where mr. breitbart has shown an uncanny ability to play on the issue of race and have it amplified on news shows, talk shows and blogs. the sherrod episode is hardly the first charge of reverse racism that has been raised by conservative media figures, nor the first that mr. breitbart has had a hand in.

but it is an open question whether conservative media outlets risk damage to their credibility when obscure or misleading stories are blown out of proportion and when what amounts to political opposition research is presented as news.

jane hall, a communication professor at american university and a former contributor to fox news, said partisan media outlets “look for something that will get an audience and that will whip up people in some kind of frenzy, warranted or not.”

skippy's sunday night music club

quote of the day

from the very honorable governor chairman dr. dean on faux teevee.

"fox news did something that was absolutely racist," dean said. "they had an obligation to find out what was really in the clip. they had been pushing a theme of black racism with this phony black panther crap and this business and this sotomayor and all this other stuff."

environmental news stories sunday

for those pesky little stories that don't get the attention they deserve on the talking head shows...

dust takes a toll.- dust is nothing new in the southwest. settlers and their livestock started kicking up dust in the region 150 years ago. trecent onslaught of dust in southwestern skies is affecting human health and safety - and also, as scientists are discovering, the region's climate - high country news

the poisoning.- capping bp's well in the gulf of mexico, even temporarily, is welcome progress, but it is not the end of the story. since the blowout in late april, up to four million barrels of oil and nearly two million gallons of toxic dispersants have been dumped into the gulf. no one has a clue yet what the longer-term effects of this catastrophe will be - rolling stone

come on in! the water's fine. -when luke borkovich has jumped into lake huron this summer, he has been able to stay in the water longer than usual. that's because the surface water temperature warmed up faster this summer than usual - port huron times herald

satellite spies vast algal bloom in baltic sea. -a potentially toxic algal bloom, covering 377,000 sq km in the baltic sea, could pose a risk to marine life in the region, warn scientists. they added that a lack of wind and prolonged high temperatures had triggered the largest bloom since 2005 - bbc

osha cuts outdated air quality rule from oil worker training. -oil cleanup workers on offshore vessels are getting additional safety training, but the training curriculum referred to air quality standards that the head of the occupational safety and health administration has acknowledged were “outrageously out of date. - propublica

usf scientists confirm underwater plumes came from bp spill. -the plumes of oil snaking through the depths of the gulf of mexico definitely came from bp's deepwater horizon gusher, scientists at the university of south florida announced friday, marking the first official confirmation of the source of the undersea oil - st. petersburg times

in gulf, epa’s water sampling found possible risk to aquatic life. -epa air sampling along the gulf coast has shown moderate pollution levels. that’s not all the epa has found. water sampling has also turned up a concentration of nickel that exceeds "chronic water benchmarks," meaning there's “the possibility of harm or risk” to aquatic life - propublica

taxpayers stuck with $100 million mess -federal and state environmental agencies today list six major sources of groundwater pollution in the region northwest of delaware city. some contamination sources date back nearly 50 years - wilmington news journal

dirty little secret.- more than 33 million gallons of raw sewage entered allentown's little lehigh creek from 1999 to 2008, a morning call review of state and federal records shows. the pollution equates to someone flushing a toilet directly into the little lehigh about once every 14 seconds for nine years - allentown morning call

counties face water crisis, study warns. - a study released this month projects that one-third of U.S. counties, and all but two in arizona, face high to extreme risks of water shortages by 2050 because of climate change. the study was written by environmental consultant tetra tech corporation for the nonprofit natural resources defense council. - green valley news

ex-workers' lawsuit blames motorola for birth defects. - a group of former motorola workers and their children filed a lawsuit friday against the schaumburg-based company, claiming toxic substances used to make motorola products caused serious birth defects in at least 30 children born to workers employed by the company since the 1960s - chicago sun times

gulf fisheries' future in doubt. - many fishermen and their boats are now working with bp in the oil spill cleanup effort, and the coastal waters which provide some of the most productive fishing are still closed. even after all the oil is gone, it will likely be years before the gulf fishing industry is as productive as it once was - weekend edition

alabama shrimp season opens, but few shrimp boats on water. -maybe they were all working for bp. or perhaps the surprise opening of alabama's shrimp season caught a lot of folks off guard. either way, it was hard to find a shrimp boat working the waters of mobile bay on friday morning as an oil-delayed season began. - mobile press register

young giver sells lemonade to help pelicans. - at first, 4-year-old jonathan bush wanted to sell all of his toys to help save the oiled pelicans. at his mother's suggestion he settled for lemonade, adding that he cannot help directly with the cleanup "because (the oil will) get in my eyes and ears and nose and mouth. - new orleans times picayune

greed covered in chocolate

forget james bond's arch rival "goldfinger"...the newest evil creature in the world is nicknamed "chocolate finger." any one person who can "corner the market" on cocoa (and thereby chocolate) to drive up prices because "he can" is pure evil.

...in a stroke, a hedge fund manager here named anthony ward has all but cornered the market in cocoa. By one estimate, he has bought enough to make more than five billion chocolate bars.

chocolate lovers here are crying into their cadbury wrappers — and rival traders are crying foul, saying mr. ward is stockpiling cocoa in a bid to drive up already high prices so he can sell later at a big profit. his activities have helped drive cocoa prices on the london market to a 30-year high.

mr. ward, 50, is not some rabid chocoholic, former employees say. he simply has a head for cocoa. and, through his private investment firm, armajaro, he now controls a cache equal to 7 percent of annual cocoa production worldwide, a big enough chunk to sway prices.

...now, traders here are buzzing that mr. ward has placed an audacious $1 billion bet in the london market for cocoa futures. this month, he bought 241,100 metric tons of beans, they say.

his play has some people up in arms. while some see it as a simple bet that cocoa prices will rise on falling supply, others say mr. ward has created a shortage of cocoa simply to drive up the price himself.

the german cocoa trade association and others wrote an angry letter to the london exchange on which cocoa is traded, demanding that it take action against what the association characterized as a “manipulation.” - nytimes

congressman clyburn has a long memory

and sense of humour.

house majority whip james clyburn (d-sc) got in a light-hearted dig at vice president joe biden today, cnn reports.

at a dedication event for the ernest "fritz" hollings special collections library, clyburn introduced biden: "ladies and gentleman, it's a pleasure for me to present to you a mainstream american who is an articulate and bright and clean and a nice looking guy." - talking points memo

crack down on bloggers?

ugh...why not try doing some damn journalism yourselves? how about cracking down on fox "news" that spreads these lies? how about cracking down on andrew breitbart who passes himself off as a "journalist"? how about cracking down on the hate speach spewed from rush limbaugh and mr. 5150 himself, glenn beck?

should there be a "gatekeeper" regulating internet bloggers? in the aftermath of the shirley sherrod incident, that's what cnn promoted on july 23.

......"if you're in a place like iran or north korea or something like that, anonymous blogging is the only way you could ever get your point of view out without being searched down and thrown in jail or worse," said roberts. "but when it comes to a society like ours, an open society, do there have to be some checks and balances, not national, but maybe website to website on who comments on things?" -newsbusters

skippy looks at books

“hustlers and the idiot swarm: a working class rant for a doomed civilization,” is a short, conversational history of just how our national political discourse got so dumb, who invested in that dumbification and who profited from it. more importantly, it examines how self-defeating an emotive, reactive political discourse is to the very voting populace whose needs are supposed to be prioritized by their democratically elected government.

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

skippy's wednesday nite music club

the rnc can't even balance their own books

just pretending everything is "okie dokie" does not make it so. wishing away deficits doesn't make them go away.

earlier this month, reports leaked suggesting the republican national committee had failed to report “hundreds of thousands of dollars” of debt to the fec. it now appears that the level of debt is much greater than originally estimated and may have been hidden by committee leadership. - think progress

i’m sorry, but who does obama have to blame for this pushing his victories off the front page? his administration. that’s who fired shirley sherrod. i’m not just mad at the firing, but for the bunker mentality revealed by the firing.

the difference between the gullible media and the administration, both "snookered" by this story, is that it was the administration that fired sherrod before all the facts were in (facts they themselves could have ascertained w/a phone call to the naacp archives).

Sunday, July 18, 2010

skippy's sunday nite music club

the big oil cleanup

no. not the gusher of the gulf. many years ago, little avila beach (just north on the 101 from santa barbara) had to be completely remade. avila beach has recently been named as one of america's "best little beach town" by travel & leisure. wonder if t&l knew the history of the destructive oil seepage that changed the face (and sand) of little avila.

...in the 1990s, engineers partnered with a multitude of regulatory agencies to accomplish an environmental cleanup that set a new standard for the petroleum industry. and now, the town is emerging from the cleanup, and the rebuilding that accompanied it, to put on a pretty face and reestablish its identity.

....it all traces back many decades to unocal, the petroleum giant founded in the late 1800s and known at one time as union oil company. the company became a major part of the economic fabric of california’s central coast. just prior to world war 2, its avila beach operations made the tiny town the world’s largest oil port.

for 100 years, oil pumped from fields in central and coastal california — in some cases several hundred miles away — was piped to huge tanks atop a bluff overlooking avila beach. crude oil, gasoline, and diesel fuel flowed downhill from that storage facility, through pipelines under the town, and out the company pier to waiting tanker ships for transport. over time, the pipelines leaked, and a huge spill of petroleum products on the order of a half million gallons developed under avila beach and began moving toward the ocean.

church was one of the first involved when the spill began to rear its ugly head. in 1988, a business owner tried to expand his building and found the lot so heavily pooled with gasoline beneath the surface that testing engineers feared if anyone lit a cigarette, they would all be blown away. in 1977, just such an explosion occurred in the same area when two college students painting their basement apartment were blasted out a window after the pilot on a water heater ignited fumes. church connected the two events and became certain the gases had to come from the same source — pipelines under the street. - progressive engineer

in a decision that still evokes much heartache, san luis obispo county and the regional water quality control board voted to dig up the contaminated soil and rebuild the town's beachfront from scratch. unocal did not want to excavate, preferring alternative methods such as using oil-eating microorganisms to clean the contaminated soil.

but after a furious debate that divided neighbors, workers last fall began to demolish the entire beachfront. after the buildings are razed, excavators will remove enough contaminated soil to pile a football field 60 feet high.

little is left of the town's commercial hub except deep, gaping holes and mounds of sand and dirt piled 20 feet high. a thin sheen of oil rises from the sand that once welcomed generations of sunbathers and family picnickers. - seattle pi

environmental news stories sunday

yep. for those pesky little stories that won't be talked about on the talking head shows this morning.

the other oil spill. -the gusher in the gulf isn't the only "oil" fouling the sea. plastic trash, which is also petroleum-based, is plaguing the world's oceans in record amounts. most of us have heard of the great pacific garbage patch - but the north pacific isn't the only ocean with a plastic problem. - living on earth

prozac pollution making shrimp reckless. - there's no happy ending for shrimp exposed to the mood-booster prozac, according to a new study. remnants of antidepressant drugs flushed into waterways worldwide are altering shrimp behavior and making them easier prey, experts say. - national geographic news

global temperatures rise to record levels. - the world is enduring the hottest year on record, according to a us national weather analysis, causing droughts worldwide and a concern for us farmers counting on another bumper year - reuters

sunk in the easy cushion of habit. - plenty of us feel a bit of guilt but don't alter our behavior because it isn't convenient. we guzzle electricity as if it arrived by magic, not from polluting coal plants. and not even the massive disaster in the gulf, caused by our national thirst for oil, has made most of us change our ways. - charlotte observer

drought is bad news for anglers in scotland. - the worst summer drought in more than 30 years has dried up some of scotland's top salmon rivers, leading to unusually low catches and fish found with bellies rubbed raw by gravel - edinburgh scotsmans

which infant formulas contain secret toxic chemicals? - even though artificial human milk is regulated by the fda, researchers from the cdc found last year that a thyroid-affecting chemical used in rocket fuel contaminates 15 brands of powdered infant formula, including two that accounted for 87 percent of market share in 2000 - mother jones

hydrocarbons in cereal stoke new debate over food safety. - when kellogg co. pulled about 28 million cereal boxes from store shelves last month, the company said only that an "off-flavor and smell" could cause nausea and diarrhea. but the culprit behind the recall is a class of chemicals now making news in the gulf of mexico: hydrocarbons, a byproduct of oil - greenwire

owe less than $100....go to jail

senator franken is pissed that this is happening...and, he's good enough and smart enough to voice up his concerns...and, you know, people are going to like him even more.

federal regulators are looking into the growing use of arrest warrants in minnesota over unpaid debts, following a star tribune investigation and a letter calling attention to the practice from sen. al franken.

a staff attorney with the federal trade commission said thursday the agency is trying to determine why debtors are being jailed in this state, and if they have been notified properly of any debt collection claims made against them in court. the agency said it was responding to a letter sent by franken, which accused minnesota debt collection firms of “abusing the state court system to reap profits.” franken urged ftc chairman jon leibowitz to take “immediate enforcement action.” - al franken

mad about the birth of lunacy

west wing writer to tackle west wing wannabe's story

one of my favorite screen writers is taking on the john edward's story. this could get interesting.

aaron sorkin -- best known for creating "the west wing" -- will make his feature directorial debut with a john edwards biopic.

sorkin's adapting and producing andrew young's "the politician: an insider's account of john edwards's pursuit of the presidency and the scandal that brought him down." project's not yet set up at a studio.

..."this is a first-hand account of an extraordinary story filled with motivations, decisions and consequences that would have lit shakespeare up," sorkin said.- variety

one of my favorite aaron sorkin writing examples was from malice. i don't remember much of the rest of the movie (hated nicole kidman's "acting")...but this one scene still haunts me to this day...especially at my temp job when i see doctors run around in their scrubbies. words can chill.

skippy's friday nite music club

a republican says that waiters are hurting their employers

by making so much money on tips. seems that someone had a tip for that moron.

you have to give tom emmer credit. when the presumptive republican nominee for governor of minnesota held a town hall meeting with waiters on wednesday -- as part of a damage control effort after he publicly complained that they were making over $100,000 per year in tips and hurting their employers -- his campaign clearly was not screening the attendees.

the event wednesday was supposed to last for an hour and a half. instead, it ended a half-hour early, as the star tribune reports: "an hour later, he walked out after a bag of 2,000 pennies was dumped inches from his face by a man exclaiming, 'i have a tip for you too, emmer!' as cascading pennies bounced in every direction and the crowd at a roseville restaurant erupted into chaos."

....emmer last week voiced his support for a policy known as a "tip credit," which is used in 43 states but not in minnesota, which allows employers to pay a lower minimum wage to waiters -- as low as $2.13 per hour, depending on the implementation, by crediting their tips towards the $7.25 federal requirement. emmer especially got himself in trouble when he said: "with the tips that they get to take home, there are some that are earning over $100,000 a year -- more than the very people that are providing the jobs and investing not only their life savings but their family's future. something has to be done about that." - talking points memo

mother nature is pissed at congress

especially at the troglodytes in the senate. she sent a little jolting reminder of who really has the power....seems this is the only way some republicans could get off their fat as***** (to run under the doorstop.)

a 3.6 magnitude earthquake rattled the washington area early friday, with thousands of residents reporting that they felt the ground shake as they slept or were waking. the u.s. geological survey said the quake was centered in montgomery county and struck at 5:04 a.m. - wapo

mad about david vitter's traylor travails

Thursday, July 15, 2010

happy blogiversary - addendum

tho we recently decried blogger for "losing" our archives, thus depriving us of access to our very first post for our traditional blogiversary* self-congratulations, the lovely batocchio (whose fifth blogiversary comes at the end of this month) suggested a couple of blogger tricks to find the offending prose, and voila! here 'tis!

ok kids, this is my first attempt at blogging. why blogging? because i can. it's a lot like mt. everest in that way. we are all climbing the peaks of cyberspace to get to the pinnacle (or is it pinochle? i prefer canasta).

the web is one huge library full of books that didn't have to go through an editor to get published. is that good or bad? in truth, it's neither (ok, i've seen some of these blogs, you're right, it is bad). but nonetheless, as the french say, pass the fries!

i gotta start off with thoughts about mr. bush's speech. didn't work for me. not me personally, but my stock portfolio. i spent most of this morning selling at least half of my holdings. one sep-ira which i had started in 1993, and had doubled in value by 2000, had fallen all the back to original value plus $50 as of end of trading today.

i hate to tell you kids this, but we're in the middle of another great depression. that's ok, though, i'm old enough that my parents grew up during the first one, so i know some good techniques for saving money.

obama hires former wellpoint executive

to help implement the new healthcare reforms....well, she helped "write them" so guess she gets to hop on board the big insurance gravy train for a longer trip down to publicfunded moolahville.

liz fowler, a key staffer for u.s. sen. max baucus who helped draft the federal health reform bill enacted in March, is joining the obama administration to help implement the new law...

....for some good background on fowler and the insidious role she played in killing the public option, watch bill moyers' recent segment here.

clearly, this is a telling indictment of the health care law itself, strongly suggesting that it was constructed by the obama administration - as some progressives argued - as a massive taxpayer-financed giveaway to private insurers like wellpoint. and let's be honest: in investment terms, fowler has been a jackpot for the health industry. - david sirota's diary over at the great orange one's.

come off it

it isn't free speech...

it's dumb hatefilled doesn't know sh** about history speech.a billboard created by an iowa tea party group comparing president barack obama to adolf hitler and vladimir lenin is being condemned by other tea party activists.

the north iowa tea party began displaying the sign in mason city last week.

the sign includes photos of obama, nazi leader hitler and communnist leader lenin with the statement: “radical leaders prey on the fearful & naive.”

now...really...who really is preying upon the fearful and naive?let me spell it out for you. g o p.

when you get things in perspective

gop gives wealthy americans a high five

and those americans who are still looking for work...the middle finger. it's unanimous within the gop that unemployed americans are lazy, no good slobs and don't deserve help.

for weeks, senate republicans have filibustered an extension of unemployment benefits on the grounds that democrats aren't willing to cut spending or raise taxes to pay for them. at the same time, the bush tax cuts are set to expire, and republicans want them to be renewed. for two days, senate minority whip jon kyl has raised eyebrows by insisting that emergency aid to unemployed people -- what he called a "necessary evil" -- be paid for through either tax hikes or spending cuts, while the tax cuts (which mostly benefit wealthy people) not be offset in any way. yesterday claimed that this view is shared by "most of the people in my party."

george steinbrenner (1930-2010)

"the boss" has passed to the great ballpark in the sky.

george steinbrenner, the new york yankees owner known as "the boss" for his tempestuous style, has died at age 80, the new york daily news reported on its website on tuesday, citing an unnamed, high-placed team source.

...after a flurry of unconfirmed reports, the family of george steinbrenner has confirmed to the new york times that the boss, the legendary and often notorious owner of the yankees has died, after apparently suffering a massive heart attack last night at his home in tampa, fl- talking points memo

please adjust your frequency

Monday, July 12, 2010

the earth is burning

gulfpocolypse

a little "light and cheery" story to start off the week. as crunch gear puts it...sorry for harshing on your buzz.

ominous reports are leaking past the bp gulf salvage operation news blackout that the disaster unfolding in the gulf of mexico may be about to reach biblical proportions.

251 million years ago a mammoth undersea methane bubble caused massive explosions, poisoned the atmosphere and destroyed more than 96 percent of all life on earth. experts agree that what is known as the permian extinction event was the greatest mass extinction event in the history of the world.

...those subterranean seas of methane virtually reshaped the planet when they explosively blew from deep beneath the waters of what is today called the gulf of mexico.

now, worried scientists are increasingly concerned the same series of catastrophic events that led to worldwide death back then may be happening again-and no known technology can stop it. - helium

lloyds of london warns of "peak oil"

and we need to start dealing with the reality of the financial catastrophe that will occur if we don't acknowledge and change the way we operate.

the lloyd's insurance market and the highly regarded institute of strategic studies (iss, known as chatham house) says britain needs to be ready for "peak oil" and disrupted energy supplies at a time of soaring fuel demand in china and india, constraints on production caused by the bp oil spill and political moves to cut co2 to halt global warming.

"companies which are able to take advantage of this new energy reality will increase both their resilience and competitiveness. failure to do so could lead to expensive and potentially catastrophic consequences," says the lloyd's and iss report "sustainable energy security: strategic risks and opportunities for business".

...the review is groundbreaking because it comes from the heart of the city and contains the kind of dire warnings that are more associated with environmental groups or others accused by critics of resorting to hype.- the guardian

switch off desal, say water utilities. - power-hungry desal plants should be mothballed when dams are full to protect against soaring bills, the nation's water utilities say - sydney australian

water: act now to conserve the new oil. - water is the new oil. in the same way that the 1973 oil crisis forced americans to scrutinize their reliance on fossil fuels, today's water shortages and rising occurrence of contaminated water supplies are shining a spotlight on our seemingly ubiquitous supply of h20. - fortune

a river's reckoning. - chicago likes to think of the filth flowing in its namesake river as nobody's business but its own, and for most of the last century that might have been true. but today that dirty water has become a problem for all the great lakes - the world's largest freshwater system and a drinking water source for 40 million people. - milwaukee journal sentinel

beekeepers credit healthy hives to protection from pesticides. - the usda has released a report stating that ccd may be caused by a fungus and a group of viruses — something beekeeper phillip raines believes comes from migratory bees being exposed to numerous amounts of chemicals and pesticides - rockford register star

a truly toxic issue. - modern life is saturated with carcinogenic chemicals. but without regulation, just how are we supposed to avoid them? - london guardian

dna patent ruling hinders monsanto. - a decision by the european court of justice on a dna patent held by global seed company monsanto has caused a stir in the biotechnology industry, with concerns that the ruling could limit the protection companies enjoy on their european patents. - nature

in the panhandle, the 'summer of oil' seems endless. - in ways big and small, the deepwater horizon disaster is reshaping the gulf coast. it's doing more than damaging the tourism and fishing industries; it's permeating the air people breathe and the way they think and feel, altering habits formed over a lifetime. - st. petersburg times

presidential commission seeks 'to give voice to the region.' - an independent commission formed by president barack obama to look at the root causes of the gulf of mexico oil disaster and the proper process for combating such catastrophes in the future holds its first public hearing monday in new orleans - nola times picayune

political landmark for bpa ban. - when a bill to ban a common plastic additive in feeding products for young children passed the assembly on july 1, it marked a milestone in state legislative efforts to regulate bisphenol a - contra costa times

fda nears approval of genetically engineered salmon. - they may not be the 500-pound "frankenfish" that some researchers were talking about 10 years ago, but a massachusetts company says it's on the verge of receiving federal approval to market a quick-growing atlantic salmon that's been genetically modified with help from a pacific chinook salmon. - mcclatchy

tuvalu faces uncertain future. - the tiny island nation of tuvalu is the lowest lying nation on earth and is struggling with the effects of rising sea levels and frequent storm surges. but there are plenty of other problems facing its inhabitants, whose home could be seen as the canary of the pacific. - new zealand press association

six lessons from the bp oil spill. - the tragedy of the bp oil spill has taught us about regulations, technology, and how our energy diet must change - christian science monitor

Saturday, July 10, 2010

skippy's saturday nite music club

still music to grow up to. when we moved from new hampshire to california, this was my "theme song."

and added bonus....for those russian spies that have been in the news of late...my grandparents fled finland when russians invaded...so there was no love of russia on that side of the family... but i loved this song!

Friday, July 09, 2010

skippy's friday nite music club

music to grow up to. yeah...i'm feeling old, but listening to these clips has certainly brought back some fond memories. and, since my parents were from the detroit area originally, i guess i have a certain fondness for the sounds of motown.

this is not about transparency, or hypocrisy. it's about power. and when you are andrew breitbart, power is all that matters. there is not a whit of thoughtfulness about this, not an iota of pretense that it might actually advance the conversation about how to deal with, say, a world still perilously close to a second great depression, a government that is bankrupt, two wars that have been or are being lost, an energy crisis that is also threatening our planet's ecosystem, and a media increasingly incapable of holding the powerful accountable.

meanwhile, the gop leaders, having done all they can to destroy a presidency by obstructing everything and anything he might do or have done to address the crippling problems bequeathed him by his predecessor, are now also waging a scorched earth battle to prevent the working poor from having any real access to affordable health insurance.

this is what the right now is: no solutions, just anger, paranoia, insecurity and partisan hatred.

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